Recently, mobile terminals such as onboard terminals, portable telephones, and the like have been improved significantly, so that for example, some mobile terminals are capable of functioning as audio-visual apparatuses for television broadcast.
Unlike terminals used in fixed positions, such a mobile terminal receives an electronic wave changeable in strength depending on where the mobile terminal is carried and depending on how fast the mobile terminal is carried. Therefore, such a mobile terminal has a problem in that it cannot receive the television broadcast normally sometimes (i.e., reception defection sometimes occurs in such a mobile terminal).
In view of this, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication, Tokukai, No. 2002-290357 (published on Oct. 4, 2002) discloses an art in which when missing of a data frame is detected at a mobile terminal, the mobile terminal transmits, to a broadcasting content delivering server, a retransmission request signal for requesting retransmission of the missing data frame.
However, the art of Japanese Patent Application Publication, Tokukai, No. 2002-290357 (published on Oct. 4, 2002) is such that if the mobile terminal is not in a service area of an access point or if the mobile terminal does not receive the missing data frame within a certain period, the data frames are reproduced with some of the data frames missing, thereby preventing the user from watching/listening to the television broadcast normally.
In such a case, the user may request for rebroadcast of the content. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Publications, Tokukai, Nos. 2002-84438 (published on Mar. 22, 2002), 2003-125380 (published on Apr. 25, 2003), 2001-177818, (published on Jun. 29, 2001), and 2001-292114 (published on Oct. 19, 2001), arts are disclosed are in which a user operates a terminal device thereby to transmits a request that designates content which the user requests to be rebroadcasted.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Publication, Tokukai, Nos. 2002-84438 (published on Mar. 22, 2002), and 2003-125380 (published on Apr. 25, 2003) discloses arts in which a television program managing company or content scheduling staff decides which content is to be rebroadcasted and a broadcast time for the content to be rebroadcasted, referring to requests of users. Moreover, Japanese Patent Application Publication, Tokukai, No. 2001-292114 (published on Oct. 19, 2001) discloses an art in which a broadcast station decides whether a piece of rebroadcast content is to be delivered via a broadcast wave or via the Internet network, depending of a number of requests for performing rebroadcast of the rebroadcast content.
Furthermore, Japanese Patent Application Publication, Tokukai, Nos. 2004-200881 (published on Jul. 15, 2004) and 2004-200882 (published on Jul. 15, 2004) discloses arts in which a server searches for content that is designated by a user, and then transmits the thus searched-out content (rebroadcast content) to a recording device of the user.
Moreover, Japanese Patent Application Publication, Tokukaihei, No. 11-164294 (published on Jun. 18, 1999) discloses an art in which a receiving device for a pay broadcast is configured to measure reception quality and sends, to a broadcast station, information that indicates a result of the measurement, for the purpose of adjusting payment amount for the pay broadcast.
In these conventional arrangements, the user should operate the terminal device to transmit the request for rebroadcast.
In this case, users transmits the request at different times. For example, some user transmits the request within a broadcast time, while some user transmits the request a few days later. Because of this, it takes a significant time to sum up the requests for rebroadcast. As a result, long after the broadcast of the content, the rebroadcast of the content is performed. The user(s) would possibly loss an interest in the content by the time when the rebroadcast is performed.